Children are our most precious gift from God—our eternal increase. Yet we live in a time when many women wish to have no part in the bearing and nurturing of children. Many young adults delay marriage until temporal needs are satisfied. The average age of our Church members’ marriages has increased by more than two years, and the number of births to Church members is falling. The United States and some other nations face a future of too few children maturing into adults to support the number of retiring adults. Over 40 percent of births in the United States are to unwed mothers. Those children are vulnerable. Each of these trends works against our Father’s divine plan of salvation.
These are such sad statistics.
Latter-day Saint women understand that being a mother is their highest priority, their ultimate joy. President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Women for the most part see their greatest fulfillment, their greatest happiness in home and family. God planted within women something divine that expresses itself in quiet strength, in refinement, in peace, in goodness, in virtue, in truth, in love. And all of these remarkable qualities find their truest and most satisfying expression in motherhood.”
He continued: “The greatest job that any woman will ever do will be in nurturing and teaching and living and encouraging and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. There is no other thing that will compare with that, regardless of what she does.”
Mothers, beloved sisters, we love you for who you are and what you do for all of us.
In his important 2015 address titled “A Plea to My Sisters,” President Russell M. Nelson said:
“The kingdom of God is not and cannot be complete without women who make sacred covenants and then keep them, women who can speak with the power and authority of God!
“Today, … we need women who know how to make important things happen by their faith and who are courageous defenders of morality and families in a sin-sick world. We need women who are devoted to shepherding God’s children along the covenant path toward exaltation; women who know how to receive personal revelation, who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment; women who know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families; women who teach fearlessly.”
The challenge is in helping people like Laura who feel completely unable to safely decor themselves entirely to motherhood. I believe the answer lies in broadening or understanding of what constitutes motherhood. It is more than what happens within the walls if the home. It includes all you do to contribute to a successful family and to set a righteous example.
Your uniqueness was recognized in a University of North Carolina study of American teens and religion. A Charlotte Observer article had the title “Mormon teens cope best: Study finds they top peers at handling adolescence.” This article concluded that “Mormons fared best at avoiding risky behaviors, doing well in school and having a positive attitude about the future.” One of the researchers in the study, who interviewed most of our youth, said, “Across almost every category we looked at, there was a clear pattern: Mormons were first.”
Here I could give you counsel on many different things, but I have chosen to speak of only two.
My first counsel concerns cell phones. A recent nationwide survey found that over half of teens in the United States said they spend too much time on their cell phones. More than 40 percent said they felt anxious when they were separated from their cell phones. This was more common among girls than boys. My young sisters—and adult women too—it will bless your lives if you limit your use of and dependence on cell phones.
My second counsel is even more important. Be kind to others. Kindness is something many of our youth are doing already. Some groups of youth in some communities have shown the way for all of us. We have been inspired by our young people’s acts of kindness to those in need of love and help. In many ways, you give that help and show that love to one another. We wish all would follow your example.
The problem with tech addiction is obvious to any who have eyes open. We often blind ourselves however to or own unkindness individually and as a society.
Here is an example. I know of a young man, a refugee here in Utah, who was teased for being different, including sometimes speaking his native language. He was persecuted by a gang of privileged youth until he retaliated in a way that caused him to be jailed for over 70 days while being considered for deportation. I don’t know what provoked this group of youth, many of them Latter-day Saints like you, but I can see the effect of their meanness, a tragic experience and expense to one of the children of God. Small actions of unkindness can have devastating consequences.
In a general conference address about the time many of you were born, President Gordon B. Hinckley praised “beautiful young women who are striving to live the gospel.” He described them, just as I feel to describe you:
“They are generous toward one another. They seek to strengthen one another. They are a credit to their parents and the homes from which they come. They are approaching womanhood and will carry throughout their lives the ideals which presently motivate them.”
As a servant of the Lord, I say to you young women, our world needs your goodness and love. Be kind to one another. Jesus taught us to love one another and to treat others as we want to be treated. As we strive to be kind, we draw closer to Him and His loving influence.
We need to encourage them in this direction without discouraging them when they are imperfect at it.
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